3 TEs Bound to Hit Paydirt in 2018
The best feeling on game day during the fantasy football season is when one of your players scores a touchdown. Over the course of the year, a few players consistently failed to score touchdowns when they were needed most. That being said, here are 3 tight ends from last year who should see a spike in the number of touchdowns they score this year.
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Jack Doyle (TE, Indianapolis Colts)
Jack Doyle had a decent 2017 season finishing as the 11th best fantasy tight end with 652 yards and 3 touchdowns, but there’s reason to believe that he should do even better in 2018. That reason is Andrew Luck. When healthy, Luck has proven to be one of the best fantasy quarterbacks in the league, and his production positively affects his pass catchers like Doyle.
In 2016, the last year Luck played a full season, he threw for 31 touchdowns, significantly more than Brissett’s 13 touchdowns he threw last year. With Luck back, the passing attack in Indianapolis will be a lot more lethal than it was in 2017, and Doyle should be the beneficiary of that.
While some may be skeptical of Doyle this year due to the signing of Eric Ebron in free agency, rest assured that Doyle will still be the starting TE. Doyle should still be a top 10 TE, but could crack the top 5 with Luck throwing the ball.
Delanie Walker (TE, Tennessee Titans)
One of the more consistent options at the TE position for the past few years, Delanie Walker put in another solid season in 2017, getting 98.6 points as the 7th best tight end in fantasy. Despite this solid season, Walker missed out on a potential top 5 finish due to the fact that he only scored 3 touchdowns. This is less than half of the touchdowns he scored in both 2015 and 2016. So what happened?
When a starting quarterback only throws for 13 touchdowns like Marcus Mariota did last year, it should come as no surprise that Walker only gets 3 touchdowns. As discussed in the QB article of this series, Mariota is due to throw for a lot more TDs than he did last year. This is good news for Walker.
Even in Mariota’s down year, Walker still got the targets (111), the receptions (74), and the yards (807) expected of a top 5 fantasy tight end. Along with the certainty that Mariota will throw for more touchdowns this year should be the expectation that Walker will catch a lot more touchdowns in 2018.
George Kittle (TE, San Francisco 49ers)
There’s a pretty good chance that most people reading this have never heard of George Kittle, considering he was the 26th ranked tight end in fantasy last year, but he is in a good position to get more touchdowns in 2018. He finished with 415 yards and 2 touchdowns, but coming in as the starting tight end in San Francisco with Jimmy Garoppolo leading the offense is good news for Kittle’s fantasy prospects.
Three of Kittle’s four best weeks in fantasy last season came with Garoppolo as the starting quarterback. In fact, from weeks 15-17, Kittle was the 3rd best tight end in fantasy with 25.4 points, a good sign that Kittle will be productive in 2018. Kittle could be a steal in the late rounds of the draft at the tight end position, as he has a legitimate chance to finish as a top 10 tight end.